Now, to the dramatic pictures playing out over california. The closest to getting to space yet. Here's muhammad lila, now. Three, two, one. Reporter: This is spaceship 2, the world's first commercial space liner. On a test flight, more than 71,000 feet into the air. That's more than double the height of a normal airplane. Enough to see the roundness of the earth and the darkness of space above. We want this program to be the beginning of a whole, new commercial era for space travel. Reporter: It's the brainchild of billionaire richard branson, hoping to launch the flights on his company, virgin galactic, later this year. We get this right, we think there's literally millions that want to go into space. Reporter: But the flights won't come cheap. At nearly $200,000 a pop, branson says 70 people have already signed up. All for the chance to feel weightless for a while in outer space. And a bit more weightless in the wallet, as well. Muhammad lila, abc news, new york.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

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